Monday, January 19, 2015

Statistics Show Computer Science Really is a Boys' Club

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the lack of women
in STEM professions and in particular computer
sciences. Google, after a lot of public media pressure, released a blog post
with a breakdown of the company’s workforce. The results regarding the gender
gap was unsurprising in that the female percentage of the workforce was
significantly lower than the male.

In fact, it was found that out of Google’s 46,170 employees
only 30 percent of them are female, only 21 percent of leadership positions in
Google are held by women. The lowest percentage, predictably, was found in the
tech sector where females hold only 17 percent of the jobs.

The problem is not just at Google as the table below shows
Google and nine other large technology companies who released data after
Google, showing the percentages of females working their companies.

Company

% of female employees

% of female employees in tech jobs

% of female employees in non-tech jobs

% of females in leadership positions

Google

30%

17%

48%

21%

Apple

30%

20%

35%

28%

Facebook

31%

15%

47%

23%

Twitter

30%

10%

50%

21%

Yahoo

37%

15%

52%

23%

LinkedIn

39%

17%

47%

25%

Pandora

49.2%

18%

57.8%

14%

Pinterest

40%

20%

66%

19%

eBay

42%

24%

49%

28%

HP

32.5%

18.4%

48.7%

25.6%

All data given in 2014
apart from HP which is from 2013.

Only three out of 10 of the world’s leading technology firms
scrape 20 percent with eBay the highest on 24 percent. It shows that in other
aspects of the company, percentages of people in non-tech fields are pretty
equal, so why is there such a dramatic difference in tech?

One issue is something again that can be seen from the table;
female leader numbers in the above companies are very low, which provides a
lack of role models for aspiring female tech professionals. It is very
difficult for women to get into managerial positions as the top firms are
dominated by what the New
York Times’ Claire Cain Miller describes as ‘a fraternity of chummy men.’
She states that there is a ‘sexist culture’ amongst companies in Silicon Valley.
The females that work there are isolated and in some cases have been found to
be harassed. A group of women working at major tech firms came out and stated
that they were ‘harassed on mailing lists and called ‘whore/c—t’’ and received
‘creepy e-mails’ that haven’t been dealt with by higher powers. The ‘fraternity
of chummy men’ may not be too far off the mark as many of the top firms will
hire from only top schools where again, STEM
courses such as computer science will be dominated by male students and teachers
(14 percent of US physics professors are female); again a potentially
off-putting statistic for young female scientists.

Creating a more female inclusive tech world will not happen
overnight; however steps are slowly being made. For example, many of the
companies mentioned have set up initiatives and groups for their minority
employees such as the Pandora Women in Business scheme. In fact, Columbia
University has a group that brings together female
computer science students to help expand their opportunities and provide
direction. Initiatives like this will encourage more females to study computer
science and by having more equal college gender ratios then the stigma of
computer science being a boys club may start to fade out. I believe because
these areas of study are dominated by men, when they then progress into
companies also dominated by males and it becomes a culture. If computer science
is seen as a unisex area of study from a younger age then it will eventually
filter into the workplace too.

About the Author:
Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the
industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent
graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as
a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World
Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.